How The Data This Woman Stored Could Change Your Life

Tweet This

Equipment sits on the digitization floor at an Iron Mountain Inc. archival facility in Hollywood, California, U.S. Engineers are feverishly digitizing old VHS tapes filled with live performances and interviews from the many musicians and stars that have graced MTV's studios, but before all this, Marion Stokes' one-woman effort tops this one for news and more. Photographer: Troy Harvey/Bloomberg

Data, it is said, is the new oil. A woman named Marion Stokes knew this early on and believed that freedom was inextricably linked to data and facts because with it one can make informed decisions. So she took what is seen as a curious and radical approach to feverishly create massive archives of what used to be the prime source of such data, television news, in a time when no one else would. Thanks to Stokes and her curious tale, you'll be able to search content from back in the day that would otherwise be lost forever.

Today external hard drives for laptops and 64 gigs of memory on mobile phones allow us to capture and store so very much content in the blink of an eye, but Stokes was a pioneer and visionary in time when collecting such data was more than cumbersome. Yet the back story behind such action is considered an odd one and captured in a hot, new documentary called Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project.

The story takes on us the journey of a unique individual who knew that news, or rather than news angles that one takes, colors our opinions of the world. Stokes knew early on that television had the power to inform or misinform and wildly influence public opinion back before everyone had a voice that we pretty much take for granted now via social media, blogs and individual video channels.

A former member of the Communist party who became substantially wealthy later in life, Marion Stokes decided to surreptitiously record American television 24 hours a day for 30 years from1975 until her death in 2012. In a statement Recorder filmmaker, Matt Stokes explains, "For Marion, taping was a form of activism to seek the truth, and she believed that a comprehensive archive of the media would one day be invaluable. Her visionary and maddening project nearly tore her family apart."

RECORDER Director Matt Wolf

Image credit: Wyatt Garfield

Stokes, a former librarian, actually started this archiving project, at the beginning of what would come to be known as the 24-hour news cycle. We learn in the film that at the height of her activity she had eight TVs and VCRs going at once capturing everything from the Iranian Hostage crisis in 1979 to Divorce Court to the events of September 11, 2001. In doing so, as the director notes, Stokes truly captured the texture of our times via such data, particularly since the television stations did not store such content.

Stokes was actually a data visionary on a number of levels. Recorder shows us that she was a huge believer in using technology to unleash potential and jumped on Apple as a champion from the very introduction of the company. She was savvy enough to recognize shifts in media and technology so much so that she made certain her already wealthy in-laws purchased Apple stock at what was only $7 a share back then when the rest of them missed all the signs of this company's destined success. In fact, Stokes had multiple items of every version that Apple released and probably if, from a different ethnic background and gender, she would be seen as an overall eccentric genius.

What is interesting is that if one steps back and tracks the reviews been written over the last several days on this film which was part of the Tribeca Film Festival line up, we see most of the observation focus on what is seen to be an obsession around taping. However, as an expert in the film notes, why is it okay if an organization such as the Smithsonian Institute collects but not an individual?

Perhaps when such action is taken by an individual such as Stokes, it is not seen as important. Add color and gender, and it becomes nearly unimaginable by most. But given the history of such sleight of hands in America via everything from the Tuskegee Experiment and more, it should not be surprising that this particular demographic is somewhat sensitive to truth, fact, data and documentation.

Further, particularly in Stokes' day, there were few people of color in any decision-making positions in media and barely much of a voice in overall American society. Could such feelings of exclusion drive one to extremes? If so, it would not be the first time.

Crazy, curious and oddball is used much more often in reviews on this film rather than other adjectives pertaining to Stokes. But after all, most visionaries are seen as this precisely because they are see the world differently from most (that's their gift) however, cultural bias complicates perception.

Indeed, Andrei Cimpian Associate Professor at New York University has conducted extensive study around perceptions of genius and brilliance, and the results are troubling, to say the least. Just in the realm of employment alone some of his co-research demonstrates that the odds of referring a woman were 38.3 percent lower when the job description mentioned brilliance. Imagine what larger achievements or true depth of being we might also be overlooking in the same manner as these job referrals because the packaging is not that of traditional images?

In a surprising turn of events well after her death, the Internet Archive acquired Stokes' unprecedented collection with the commitment to digitize her tapes and to make them accessible online to any and everyone. The storage pods were shipped from her birthplace of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to the Internet Archive’s storage warehouse in Richmond, California, where the tapes currently live on hundreds of pallets and are being converted into metadata with teams of volunteers via a massive undertaking.

Perhaps such a story just demonstrates why diversity and inclusion so important in business today. Different people are going to see opportunities that others from different cultural backgrounds and experiences will probably miss. And it is those seemingly maniacal actions and drive that just might make a huge impact in the world that would otherwise never exist.

My ebook "America's Most Wanted: The Millennial - how to quad decode and trend forecast" can be found here.